28 Days Later...

Rating: 8/10 (12 October 2009)

Recently Danny Boyle won the best directing Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, a worthy award winner in my opinion. Boyle is a director that never rests on his laurels, recreating genres every time he steps up to the plate. One of his most familiar is the polarizing dramedy Trainspotting, but he's also recreated the sci-fi movie with Sunshine, the kids movie with Millions and so on. Danny Boyle is a filmmaker worthy to be listed among the great auteurs like Scorsese, Hitchcock, and so on. With 28 Days Later... (unfortunately, often referred to as a "zombie" movie, though it's not) he tackles horror with excellent precision.
28 Days Later opens with scenes of violence being watched by a monkey on a TV screen as he lays strapped down in a lab. Extremist animal activists break into the lab in an effort to save the animals from being tested on only to find they've been infected with a highly contagious virus known as Rage. Disaster leads to death and devastation throughout all of London. Cut to Jim (Cillian Murphy) 28 days later, a bike courier waking up from a coma in an empty hospital. After wandering across London, bewildered by the lack of people, he's saved by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley) as he's being chased by the infected denizens of the city. After finding other survivors, Frank and Hannah (Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns), they hear a radio broadcast from a military installment which houses other horrors for our survivors.
While often considered a zombie movie, and it borrows liberally from many past zombie movies, 28 Days Later is not a zombie movie. The infected in this movie are living beings, infected by a virus that similar to Ebola is communicable by blood, and has more affect on the brain than the physicality of a human being. This is important to the message of the movie as the virus represents something that is inherent in all of us and leads to social unrest and the breakdown of modern society, as the virus did in the movie. In this Boyle has done something that he does very well in every one of his movies: creates a great social commentary. Throughout the course of the movie we see that there are those who would fight against a society gone wrong, and those that would exploit it. Yet, while exploring the themes of moral ambiguity, Boyle never handles them with a heavy handed approach.
Having a moral/ social message is important to good horror in this reviewers opinion, but how the movie looks and feels is easily just as important to hold the viewers attention. Boyle chose to shoot the majority of the movie with DV cameras, giving the movie a gritty post apocalyptic type feel while also giving the movie a kind of documentary feel as well. On top of that, the DV camera also allowed for tricks that gives the infected an otherworldly look, making them seem scarier when they're bum rushing their "prey". The visuals selected to fill the frame also give you a glimpse at an alien world, a city, or a grocery store that should be buzzing with people, but because of the look of film, it seems even more eerie when you see it emptied of all presence.
The acting of course is top notch, as anyone whose seen Brendan Gleeson act would expect, but the movie really belongs to Cillian Murphy who had his break out performance in this movie. As Jim, a man who went down one day in a bustling city, and woke up the next in an empty city, Murphy shows the pain of a man whose lost everything before he even knew what had happened to him. Cillian gives us a man in the middle of a crisis that we truly believe his arc from a pained and scared man just waking up at the end of the world to a man who will fight through all hell to protect those he cares about. Naomie Harris, who also received great acclaim for this movie, portrays a strong woman struggling with her fear and sorrow, but always holding it in, trying to steel herself from pain to come. Also keep your eyes open for Christopher Eccleston, who will become the future Dr. Who a few years after this movie.
For as great as the movie is though, I do have my nitpicks. Calling the virus Rage seems a little too on the nose for my tastes, but luckily this isn't mentioned too often throughout. At the beginning there are also glaring plot holes in the scheme of today's society. Why is Jim the only patient to not be evacuated from the hospital? And why did they leave a comatose patient naked in the ICU? Why are there no cars left on the streets of London, or along the highways? A lot of this is due to the budget of the film, and can be explained away, but as there are no answers to be found within the actual narrative of the movie they must be left as plot holes. Luckily, as the only plot holes are mainly to be found at the beginning of the movie they do not detract from the movie as a whole, and will be forgotten by most by the end of the movie.
For fans of horror, and movies with a deeper socio-political meaning this is definitely a must watch, but think before you decide to show this to your kids. There is full male nudity, as well as a lot of cursing. But if you're looking for a captivating horror this movie is definitely for you.